Helpless
by bionic4ever
Summary: Sus2. Jaime has been kidnapped and Steve is being stalked, Fatal Attraction style. Are the incidents connected, and can Steve find his wife in time?
1. Chapter 1

**Helpless**

(dedicated to Julie, with thanks for her support when it got difficult)

Chapter One

Jaime never saw it coming, so when the nightmare began, she had no idea what hit her and not even the slimmest chance to fight back or escape.

Steve had spent the afternoon in a meeting with Oscar, Jack Hansen and General Bailey of the Air Force. They'd been discussing the underground intelligence squad the Air Force had put together 16 months earlier; highly effective due to its avoidance of federal supervision and red tape. Steve, an integral part of the original group, had finally convinced Oscar and Hansen that a similar group, under the auspices of the OSI/NSB would never work. It appeared that one of the agents Steve had trained and supervised had recently been killed when she re-surfaced and attempted to turn traitor. Steve had no interest in making any sort of attempt at re-forming his elite intelligence force.

The fact that his opinion had prevailed made Steve feel utterly triumphant. He hurried home in joyful anticipation of sharing the news with his wife. Jaime felt strongly that the lack of official control made the sale of top secret information too tempting, and if the squad were reinstated, more deaths like Claudia Spencer's were inevitable. Steve couldn't wait to tell her every detail of the afternoon's discussion.

The second he walked in the front door, Steve knew something was terribly wrong. The house smelled like...a house. No aromas of exotic or down-home cooking greeted him, and no one met him at the door with a bouncy hug and a kiss. He'd never expected Jaime to start cooking elaborate meals for him - he'd told her he'd be happy eating PB & J, as long as it was with her - but since the wedding she'd become dramatically domestic, which made the lack of appetizing scents very unusual.

Jaime wasn't even in the kitchen. She wasn't outside in the garden or filling the bird feeders. Steve was worried enough to make his way through the house, checking every room and calling her name; there was no answer. He passed from worried to frantic when he found her purse sitting undisturbed on their bed, and her car in the garage, undriven, the engine cold. There were no signs of any sort of struggle, and as he re-entered the living room, Steve noticed a red rose placed neatly on the coffee table with a note underneath it. _"I love you, Darling, and I'll see you soon."_ The handwriting was very feminine, but it was **not** Jaime's.

------

Jaime knew she was in trouble at almost the same moment her husband did. She opened her eyes but the fogginess of sleep remained. She tried to stretch herself awake, but found she was unable to move. She hadn't been tied or restrained, but whatever she was confined in was very small - about three feet square - and she couldn't pull her arm or legs back enough to gather the strength to break through the walls. Jaime didn't know where she was or who had done this to her, but she knew for certain that she was trapped.

------

"Maybe she went for a walk," Oscar suggested, trying to keep Steve hopeful.

"Not this close to dinnertime. And she would've left a note." Steve glanced into the living room, where Hansen's investigators were carefully placing the "I love you" note into an evidence envelope. "Jaime didn't write that. She's never once called me 'Darling' and it isn't her handwriting."

"Pal, I hate to ask this, but is there someone -"

"NO!"

"Could Jaime have found the note, assumed there _was_ someone else, and...left?" Oscar asked gently.

"She knows I could never do that, and besides, if she did believe it, Jaime's too strong-willed to just take off. She would've waited for me to get home and then told me in no uncertain terms what I could do with myself."

"You're probably right."

"Oscar, she didn't leave voluntarily; I just _know_ something's wrong."

Oscar nodded grimly. "Jack's got all of his men working on this, and we're on it, too. We'll find her, Pal." To himself, he thought: _Hopefully, we'll find her alive_.

------

Jaime struggled stubbornly for what seemed like hours. The only result was that she was now lying in the box on her side, in a fetal position, instead of sitting upright and scrunched over. This was somewhat more comfortable, but even as her head began to clear, she was still unable to see anything and couldn't get the leverage to so much as dent the walls of the tiny, coffin-like prison. Exhausted, discouraged and frightened, she searched her memory for any clues that might help her.

Steve had left right after breakfast; she remembered that. His meeting wasn't until 1:00pm, but he was also stopping to visit Rudy and then talk with Oscar. Jaime had decided to run her errands before lunch, and had just finished showering and getting dressed. She was about to pick up her purse from the bed and head out the door when the phone rang. The line was silent, no one was on the other end, and...that was the last thing Jaime could remember.

Parts of a foggy, overheard conversation drifted through her mind. Had she heard it in her bedroom, where she was being held now, or somewhere in between? Or was it just a drug-induced hallucination?

"_She's all yours...Remember, I don't want any details about how you do it or what ends up happening to the body...I am out of the picture..."_ This was a woman's voice, low pitched and cruel; Jaime never saw a face.

_"Not to worry...You're out of the picture, and so is she..."_ This was a man, possibly older, but once again, she'd seen no face.

Jaime's mind swirled with terror. **_The body_**? **_Out of the picture_**? What the hell...?

She didn't have the time to try and figure out what had happened, or what was going to happen. The tiny box began to fill quickly with a fine, choking mist, and Jaime was no longer thinking much of anything.

------

Steve watched as the investigators looked for any signs of an intruder, a struggle or any type of violence. Hansen stopped to speak to him as his men eventually began to leave.

"Steve, I'm so sorry this happened. The two of you have been through so much; you didn't deserve this."

"Thanks."

"I'd like you to know we'll do everything in our power - and outside our power, if we have to - to find Jaime and bring her home. You'll let us know if anyone calls or tries to contact you, or if you find anything?"

"Of course," Steve replied. He was grateful that, even though Jaime had only been gone a short time, they were taking this _very_ seriously.

Hansen nodded. "We'll do the same, and I'll keep in touch."

Steve shook the NSB Director's hand and stood at the window until every car had pulled out of the driveway. He decided to walk through the patch of woods behind the house to look for any trace of his wife. The NSB had searched there, but Steve's eyesight was immeasurably better. After an hour of intense effort, he headed back to the house and went into the bedroom to look through Jaime's purse. Maybe he'd find a strange address, name or phone number.

The purse, which had been sitting in the center of the bed, was on the floor. On his pillow, Steve found a second red rose resting upon another note.

_Darling, the future is finally ours._ _Soon, we can finally be together forever. I love you._

------


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Steve pushed aside any thought of sleep. He didn't want to waste the time while Jaime was in danger. He was also more than a little afraid to close his eyes, since whoever left the notes had come into his home while he was less than a half-mile away, just beyond the backyard. At one point, he tried sitting back in his easy chair with his eyes shut, hoping to somehow find a psychic link to his wife. The only pictures his mind created were horrific and unthinkable: Jaime, bruised, bleeding and unconscious, unable to move and _buried alive_. Closing his eyes was completely out of the question.

His arms felt painfully empty, and his entire heart and soul_ ached_ for her. For the first time in his life, Steve Austin felt helpless.

------

Jaime awakened very slowly, achieving what felt like only partial awareness. It felt like she'd eaten, but she had no memory of that. Her mind tipped and whirled crazily, blurring reality, imagination and nightmares into a single, unbearable fog. She still couldn't move, couldn't see and wasn't even able at the moment to form a complete, cohesive thought. Jaime had no choice but to lie in one position in the little coffin/cell, waiting for whatever would happen next. She was thoroughly, utterly helpless.

------

The first note had been turned over to the NSB for fingerprint testing, and while Steve had reported the second note to both Oscar and Jack, he'd asked for - and received - permission to hold onto this one himself, and in the middle of the night he sat with the note on the coffee table in front of him. The handwriting, the light pink paper with the tiny red rose imprinted in one corner, the spritz of perfume - he knew there was a clue there somewhere. Why wasn't he seeing it?

Steve couldn't bear to think of what Jaime might be going through, and yet he couldn't think of anything else. Was she frightened? _Probably_. Was she hurt? _Quite possibly._ Was she alive? _She **had** to be!_ His gaze was drawn toward the mantle, where he and Jaime had just hung their wedding portrait, and it seemed that he was physically feeling his heart break.

Oscar returned just after 6:00am, and found his friend standing at the mantle, staring vacantly at the wedding picture. "You've been up all night," Oscar observed. It didn't surprise him; he'd spent the night in his office, pouring through mountains of files. "I'll make you some coffee," he said softly.

He got as far as the kitchen table and froze in his tracks. "Steve..." Oscar's first call to his friend was quiet, stunned. "Steve, you need to see this," he said more urgently.

Steve had thought he couldn't possibly feel any more devastated or frightened, but he was wrong. Directly in front of his seat, placed very neatly and deliberately, was a small basket that held several fresh chocolate chip muffins - his favorite - along with a red rose and another note. Steve moved numbly to the table and read the message that nearly stopped his heart.

_Good morning, Darling. Now your past is dead and our future begins. I love you._

_------_

Jaime was fading in and out of consciousness. In some of her more aware moments, she reasoned that, in addition to having a door or hatch, the box had to have some sort of ventilation system, a means of pumping in air, or she'd have suffocated hours earlier. The mist that had knocked her out must've come in through the same system. If she could find it, she thought, she might be able to plug it if the mist came in again.

It was a slow, agonizing process. Jaime didn't know which way was up or down, or in which direction she was facing, but she found a hatch to her right, its edges so even with the wall that it was barely discernible. Her hand brushed back against her face, and she discovered she was wearing a blindfold that had gone unnoticed in the pitch blackness of the box. She couldn't raise either arm enough to remove it. Finally, when she'd just about reached the point where her muscles cramped beyond any hope of further movement, Jaime found the small hole that served as an air vent. She remained in exactly that position, with one hand extended toward the hole, waiting.

Her diligence was soon rewarded. She'd been listening closely, and heard the sound of the airflow change from a low, steady hum to a faster, near-whining noise. Jaime pressed a finger tightly against the hole. Soon, she felt a rush of air as the hatch opened, and she forced her aching body to go limp, feigning unconsciousness. Rough hands grabbed her and flipped her over so she was facing away from the hatch, then yanked her arms behind her and pulled them together. Jaime winced in pain as handcuffs were clamped tightly around her wrists.

She was pulled from the tiny prison with brutal force and flung roughly to the ground. The abrupt cruelty caused an involuntary cry to escape her lips, giving her away.

"Had a feeling you were awake," a man's voice snarled. It was the voice from the 'body' conversation that had been playing over and over in her mind. Jaime realized it hadn't been a hallucination at all; sometime in the near future, this man planned to kill her.

"Did I hurt you, Little Lady? I'm so sorry," he said in a hard, most un-sorry voice. "Not to worry - your suffering will all be over soon. For good."

Jaime pictured Steve's face in her mind for courage and strength, and somehow found the will to rise to her feet. She swung her leg wildly in the direction the voice had come from, with what should've been a solid kick, but her captor had the advantage of sight. While her attempt at a defensive blow missed, his fist connected squarely with the side of her face and an extremely vicious blow struck the back of her head, sending her reeling to the floor. She was still semi-conscious, but did not attempt to get up again.

"Guess you don't need breakfast after all, Little Lady," the man growled. He dragged Jaime, who was incapable of any further struggling, back to the hatch and forced her into the box. "Not to worry; I'll be back to take care of you before you know it." He slammed the hatch closed, locking her inside.

------

Steve sat at the kitchen table with Jack Hansen and Oscar, both of whom were beginning to feel as helpless as he was. "I was in the next room, and I never heard a thing," Steve said quietly.

"And no one contacted you about ransom, or with any other demands?" Hansen asked.

"No; not a word." Steve knew as well as Oscar and Jack did that this wasn't a good sign. Jaime had been gone for almost 24 hours, and every hour that passed without a phone call made it more likely that whoever had taken his wife had done so with the sole intention of killing her.

"The FBI has entered the case, as of this morning," Oscar told him. "They'll be working the handwriting/fingerprint angle, but since the NSB is already investigating your present contacts, the FBI will be looking further into past acquaintances." Oscar glanced at the latest note. "They'll be concentrating on _female_ contacts. Pal, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you one more time: is there _anyone_ you can think of -"

"**NO**!"

Oscar persisted. He had no choice. "Maybe someone you never dated, but who might've _thought_ you had a relationship?"

Steve shook his head sadly. "There isn't anyone - except Jaime - and there never has been."

"What about when she had amnesia? Didn't even remember you?" Hansen probed.

"I was too busy working, trying to bury the pain and let her go."

Hansen nodded. "So if there _had_ been someone with her eye on you, you wouldn't have noticed."

Steve buried his face in his hands, too frustrated to say any more. Oscar placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Why don't you go and lie down for a little while? I'll stay here, in case -"

"No - I...I can't stand the pictures in my head when I close my eyes."

"Then just stretch out and rest for an hour or two. You can't be much help to Jaime or anyone else if you collapse from exhaustion."

"Maybe you're right. You'll come and get me if...anything happens?"

"Right away. I promise."

Steve nodded weakly, got up and headed down the hall to the bedroom. Oscar heard the ensuing groan from the kitchen.

"Oh, God, no..."

------


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Oscar found Steve in the doorway, staring at the bed, his face an expressionless mask. "Blood," he mumbled, as much to himself as to Oscar. "That's...blood."

It certainly appeared that he was right. The covers had been pulled to the foot of the bed and huge, ugly crimson splashes covered Jaime's pillow and the entire side she slept on. The window screen had been cut and the window forced open.

"Blood's fresh," Hansen noted, joining them. "This happened while we were right down the hall. Whoever this is, they know an awful lot about stealth."

"Like a burglar," Oscar speculated.

Hansen's face was resolute. "Like an _operative_."

------

The FBI conference room, which had become the Base of Operations simply because it was the largest, immediately went into overdrive. Following Jack Hansen's urgent phone call, files were pulled on every operative, past and present (going back two years, to start) from all three agencies plus the secret Air Force intelligence squad that had been formed by general Bailey with Steve's help and direct supervision. Upon being activated, all government operatives were fingerprinted for the records, so they finally had a definitive place to start.

------

Rudy Wells had been called to Steve and Jaime's house, while Oscar waited with a bewildered and frightened Steve. Both Oscar and Rudy strongly suggested Steve stay in a hotel for the time being, since the 'visits' were growing in terms of intensity and threat level. Steve adamantly insisted on staying in his home, in case Jaime called for help or a ransom demand was made. He also felt that, in the extremely likely event his 'visitor' returned, he stood the best chance of actually physically catching her (or him).

While Steve took a quick shower, Oscar and Rudy had a chance to sit down and talk. "He's falling apart," Rudy noted. "Can't say I blame him. Don't think I could've lasted this long in his shoes."

"They tested the blood from the bed," Oscar told him. "It's human...but it isn't Jaime's."

"Thank God for that. Oscar, I'll stay with Steve so you can get back to work..."

"I would like to help with the recov...the _rescue_."

Rudy caught the original phrasing, and reality hit him like a giant mallet. "You don't think she's alive," he said, very softly.

"I'm not completely giving up hope, but this last episode was so vicious, so openly - psychotic. I hate to even think it, much less say it, but the chance of finding Jaime alive is growing slimmer by the hour."

------

At that moment, almost 26 hours since her abduction, Jaime was struggling with everything she had left, just to stay awake. Her face throbbed where she'd been struck, and the way she was positioned, she was lying directly on the tennis ball-sized goose egg at the back of her head. It did **_not_** make a good pillow. The pain made closing her eyes nearly irresistible, but she didn't dare.

Jaime was fairly certain that when "Mr. Not-To-Worry" came back, he planned to kill her. She had very little chance of escape, being injured, blindfolded and still handcuffed, but if she was unconscious, she'd have no chance at all. She kept Steve's face in her mind as a way to stay focused and as calm as possible. _Rational, logical thoughts_, she told herself. She _would_ figure something out, because Jaime had every intention of returning to her husband.

------

"That's impossible," Oscar insisted, staring at the paper Russ had handed him.

"It should be, but there it is," Russ told him. "When the handwriting and fingerprints both matched, we ran the blood. It's a match, too, and it's fresh. We ran that test twice."

"Russ, I need to see -"

His request was anticipated. "Here's the whole file."

Oscar opened it up, turning immediately to the last page. "Russ, get me -"

"General Bailey is on his way here."

Oscar smiled slightly at his assistant's efficiency. "Thank you. When he gets here, send him across the street to my office. He and I need to have a _private_ talk. And call Steve. He needs to be warned - immediately."

------

Steve heard the phone ring, and, leaving Rudy on the back porch, he hurried inside to answer it.

"Steve, it's Russ. We've got a match -" That was all Steve heard before the line went dead. He shook the receiver, hung up and tried to re-dial, but had no luck.

"Rudy, you'd better come inside," he called. When he got no response, he headed out the back door. He found the doctor slumped over in his chair, breathing and with no obvious signs of injury, but as Steve moved closer, he could smell the distinctive odor of chloroform.

Before he had time to react, feminine arms that were not his wife's encircled Steve's waist from behind. Whoever she was, she stood way too close, pressing into him and kissing the back of his neck. "I'm here, Darling, just like I promised."

Steve knew he'd heard that voice before, but just couldn't place it. He grabbed her wrists firmly and pushed her away before turning around. "**_Where is my wife_**?" he demanded with quiet fury. He kept a tight grip on her as he whirled around. He stood in shocked silence, unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. _It couldn't be..._

She smiled at him, her own eyes wild. Her words chilled his soul and shredded his heart. "Jaime's dead. We can be together now."

"_Claudia_?"

"Thought I was in the ground somewhere, turning to mulch, huh?"

"**_What did you do to Jaime_**?" he snarled, flinging her - less roughly than he wanted to - into a chair. "If you even try to get up, I will knock you out with one swing. Now - _where is she_?"

"Couldn't tell you, the un-dead Claudia Spencer answered, still smiling sweetly. "All I did was nab her. Paid someone else to actually kill her. Aww - don't look at me like that. I did it for us. I can do so much more for you than she ever could." She began to get up from the chair.

Steve stepped toward her, his eyes cold and angry. "I wasn't kidding; I'll hurt you." He put his hands on her shoulders and helped her sit down. "**Don't move**." He stepped off the porch and tore down the clothesline, intending to secure her to the chair so he could get to a phone and call for help.

"You don't wanna do that," Claudia purred, right before the gunshot.

Steve turned quickly, and Claudia - gun still in her hand, pointed at Steve - had fallen to the ground. Rudy, directly behind her, was awake, with his own just-fired gun in his hand. Steve rushed to the doctor's side.

"Are you alright?"

"I smelled the chloroform when she came up behind me," he explained. "Held my breath. Don't usually carry a gun, but I had a hunch we might need one today." The doctor knelt beside the fallen woman.

"Rudy, you're amazing," Steve told him. "Thank you."

Rudy nodded, checking Claudia for a pulse. "She's dead - for real, this time."

------


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Thank you," General Bailey said comfortably, accepting Oscar's offer of a cigar before sinking into a chair. "Quite a sudden summons. What's the occasion?"

"Claudia Spencer," Oscar said grimly.

"There's a name I never expected to hear again. Just tragic."

"You signed the death certificate."

"Yes?"

Oscar took a deep puff from his own cigar. "Says here she was killed in a fire."

"That's right; arson."

"What condition was the body in?"

"Dead." Bailey laughed. Oscar did not. "Oh - you're serious. I suppose you could say she was burned beyond recognition."

"You ordered DNA tests, then?"

"No."

"Why the hell not?"

"Excuse me?" Bailey bristled. "I don't appreciate your tone -"

"Just answer the question, General," Oscar demanded. "_Why_ was there no DNA test?"

"This is starting to feel like an interrogation. Is it?"

"No - of course it isn't. But it _is_ urgent - life or death - and anything you can tell me might help."

"Well, Claudia was the sole resident of a very remote government safe house. It was the middle of the night and she was apparently asleep in her bed, with the doors locked from the inside. It had to be Claudia. We buried her two days later. I oversaw it personally."

"Then I'm afraid you were duped. Claudia is alive."

"That's not possible."

Oscar slid the blood test results across the desk. "See for yourself."

"My God..." The General's face grew paler with each sentence he read. "Looks like we got conned." He looked up at Oscar. "The blood samples were taken from _Steve Austin's **bed**_?"

"She's been breaking into his house, right under the noses of everyone there. At first she left love notes, but in the latest incident, she splashed blood all over his wife's side of the bed. The worst part is that Jaime's been missing for almost a day and a half; we originally thought the blood was hers."

"Poor Steve," Bailey lamented. "I can't imagine what he must be going through."

"He's in rough shape."

"I'd like to help in any way I can. Not to worry - we'll find her."

"We're working out of FBI conference room 'A'," Oscar told him. "I'm sure they'd be glad to have you." He shook the General's hand once more, watched him leave, then picked up the phone. "Russ? We need to open a grave."

------

The sudden rush of air as the hatch was opened brought Jaime back to full alertness. Wordlessly, her captor pulled her out into the open and placed her upright in a small, uncomfortable chair. Although she was in considerable pain, Jaime remained stoically silent, refusing him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

"I've decided to be a bit more charitable," he told her. "I'm going to let you film a little goodbye message for your husband." He removed her blindfold but left the handcuffs in place.

Jaime pulled at the cuffs, deciding that regaining the use of her right arm was worth possibly breaking her left, but her body was too weak to support the use of her bionics, so she sank back into the chair, defeated. She glared up at the man who intended to kill her, getting her first actual look at him. He was huge: very tall, and muscular in a beefy, unattractive sense of the word. She guessed he was in his late 50s, but he moved and carried himself with a straight, almost military-like posture that made him appear younger. He had the coldest, cruelest eyes Jaime had ever seen.

"So," he continued, placing a camera on a tripod in front of her and turning on a tape recorder, "considering you have only a few hours left to live, what would you like to tell the great Steve Austin?"

"Why?" She said, very quietly. "So you can cause him even more pain? Manipulate him into doing whatever it is you want? **_Go to Hell_**!" With great effort, Jaime rose from the chair, her eyes blazing, and kicked the tripod with all she had left, sending it clattering into the man's legs, almost - but not quite - bringing him down.

"That was incredibly stupid!" He growled, reaching for her arm as Jaime whirled around and spat in his face. Satisfied that she'd shown her contempt and ruined at least part of his 'fun', she moved back toward the chair, the last of her strength depleted.

Jaime felt the burning pain in her side, and her mind never even had the chance to register the sound of the gunshot.

------

Steve was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. He was also out of patience and nearly out of hope. He'd escorted Rudy to the hospital, insisting the doctor get checked out. He'd then ensured that the coroner was on his way for Claudia, and he'd just finished giving Oscar all the details.

"Rudy did the only thing he could do," Steve concluded. "He saved my life. But...with Claudia dead, how do we find Jaime now?" His voice broke as he fought back the flood of emotion that threatened to drown him. "Claudia insisted that...Jaime's...dead. But she said she paid someone else to...to _kill_ her. So -"

"She could've been wrong," Oscar finished for him. "Or, she may have lied to cause confusion...or to hurt you in the deepest way she knew how."

Steve made no attempt to wipe the tears from his eyes. "She definitely succeeded," he said softly, "on both counts."

------


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The FBI conference room sprang to sudden life. While Russ was on the phone trying to find someone - anyone - who could authorize the opening of Claudia Spencer's grave, Steve (who was somewhat stoic now)arrived with the news that Claudia was dead.

"I just heard from Bethesda," Hansen told him. "Rudy Wells is fine, but they're keeping him overnight for observation, mainly due to his age."

Russ was still on the phone and about to reach his full-rage-mode when General Bailey walked in. "I don't care if he's in a private conference with God himself," Russ was shouting, "I need his permission to open a grave, and I need it yesterday!" The General took the phone from his hand and spoke very softly - but with an iron-tough edge - to the bureaucratic go-between on the other end.

"This is General Franklin Bailey, United States Air Force. Kindly remove your head from your other end and get this young man what he needs. I mean do it **now**!" Bailey nodded to Russ as he handed him the phone. He walked over to Steve and pulled him off to one side, placing a paternal hand on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry about what's happened," he said in a much kinder voice than he'd just used on the phone. "I know how much Jaime means to you. Any leads at all?"

"Claudia admitted to kidnapping Jaime," Steve replied, almost choking with emotion as he said his wife's name. "She's claims to have turned her over to someone else - someone that she paid to...kill her."

"_You found Claudia_?"

"I was with Rudy Wells, and she found us. She tried to knock Rudy out with chloroform and was about to shoot me, but Rudy got her first."

"She's - dead?" Bailey asked.

"Yeah." Steve shook his head at the irony. "Here we are, about to dig up the month-old grave of a woman who just died today."

"Who did she turn Jaime over to? Did she say?"

"No."

Bailey patted Steve's shoulder. "I'll go and pull her expanded file; maybe it'll give us a clue. Not to worry, Steve - we'll have that little lady back in your arms in no time. I'll call as soon as I find something."

"I'll be back at the house," Steve told him. "There's gotta be something there that we've overlooked."

------

Jaime's captor was in a major hurry. He was losing in his race against time, and he knew it. Quickly, he parked his car out of sight, behind some trees at the edge of the forest. He took a shovel from the trunk and, after a few minutes, found his intended spot - a heart-breakingly ironic choice - and began to dig.

------

Steve wondered how a heart that was shattered could feel so heavy. He sat wearily in the easy chair, and tears filled his eyes as he looked up at the portrait above the mantle.

"I'm trying, Sweetheart - we're _all_ trying to find you," he said to the woman in the picture and in his heart. "Oh, Jaime..._where are you_?" Images flooded his mind, even though he was wide awake: Jaime, hurt, tortured and bleeding, growing weaker by the minute, _dying..._

------

Steve's vision was closer to reality than he could possibly know. Jaime was growing weaker every minute as blood seeped out of the wound in her side. She seemed to be sideways in the box, so at least the back of her head was spared, for now. She was no longer able to isolate pain in her side, on her face, on her head; all Jaime knew was that she _hurt_. Her husband's face was affixed in her mind, and as the thick, suffocating blackness descended upon her, one lone thought echoed there: **_I love you, Steve._**

------

Steve felt inexplicably drawn to the woods behind the house, to try and clear his head and feel a little more connected to his wife. He rested his hand on the back of one very special tree - the one on which he and Jaime had carved their names and the date when they'd returned home after their wedding. He ran his hand around the tree, tracing the carving on the other side before actually looking at it.

When he walked around to the other side, he somehow stopped just short of breaking his neck. Directly in front of him - in front of _their_ tree - was a hole in the dirt, about 6 feet by 3 feet, and maybe 7 or 8 feet deep. It almost looked like...a grave, but Steve knew that grief was taking his imagination for a ride. If that damned utility company thought they could run cables through this woods, they were sorely mistaken. He would personally straighten them out - as soon as he found his wife.

------

Jaime's captor opened the hatch to find his prisoner had lost her battle against unconsciousness. Why wasn't she following the plan? She was supposed to be awake. It wouldn't be right for her to miss her own grand finale. He yanked her out by jerking on the handcuffs, slamming her head against the edge of the metal box before savagely throwing her to the floor. Jaime moaned softly and opened her eyes.

"That's better," he said with a sneer. "Did you think I was leaving you in there to bleed to death? Too easy. Not that I want you to suffer, Little lady, but your husband has some significant payback coming to him. Not to worry, though - it'll only hurt for a little while longer." He pulled a gun from his pocket. "Get up."

Jaime stared at him numbly. She couldn't even get her eyes to focus; there was no way she could stand. As she looked silently into the face of the man who was about to kill her, she took comfort in the knowledge that, one way or another, her ordeal was nearly over.

------

Steve sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, picking apart Claudia's words to try and find some sort of clue, but he was coming up with nothing. He was so deep in thought that he barely heard the phone ring. The OSI had pushed through a rush repair job on the phone line, attaching a tracer at the same time. Steve took a deep, steadying breath before answering.

"Hello?"

"I've dug your wife's grave." A voice, obviously disguised, spoke so softly that Steve had to strain to hear it. The sheer evil in the words made him shiver.

"Who are you? Where's -"

"Your wife? She's right here with me. Pretty little thing. Shame she's in so much pain."

"You son-of-a -"

"Now Colonel, watch that temper. You brought this on yourself, you know. But not to worry - she won't suffer much longer. It's time. See, I'm about to bury her alive."

Steve called Hansen immediately, but the caller hadn't been on the line long enough, and the trace had failed. "We may have something soon, though," Hansen said. "Russ & his team just broke ground at the gravesite..."

_The gravesite_! Steve thought to himself. _That creep wouldn't have put Jaime in Claudia's grave, would he?_ It might've come to him sooner if he hadn't been so depleted, but suddenly everything gelled in Steve's head. "Jack, I gotta go!"

------


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Steve flew out the back door so hard and so fast that the door sailed off its hinges onto the porch. He ran toward the woods - toward _their_ tree - at bionic speed, praying as he ran. When he reached the hole beside the tree, Steve breathed a sigh of relief. General Bailey was already there, holding an unconscious Jaime in his arms.

"General, thank God! And thank you." Steve reached out for his wife.

"Step back, Steve," the General said softly, suddenly brandishing a gun which he pressed directly to Jaime's head.

"General...what the hell? It's - been - you?"

Bailey laughed. "Give the boy a Kewpie doll!"

"Why?" Steve was beyond shock, nearly unable to absorb the sight of his former mentor threatening Jaime's life. "You've never even met Jaime. What _happened_ to you, that you could hurt an innocent woman" Steve could plainly see that Jaime was hurt - dreadfully hurt. He couldn't tell if she was breathing.

"I might not know her," Bailey sneered, "but I know you, far too well. The Elite Force should've been my ticket to becoming an Oscar Goldman or a Jack Hansen, but one report shut it all down. **Your** report, Steve. You destroyed the most important part of my life, and now I'll be destroying the most important part of yours. I wanted to bury your wife alive and see your face when you found her, just minutes too late, but killing her right in front of you is almost as satisfying."

An unexpected voice both broke the tension and added to it. Oscar had snuck into the woods, silently and unnoticed, and stood next to Steve, holding a gun of his own as he warily eyed the one Bailey was threatening Jaime with. "Franklin,_ look at what you're doing_," Oscar said, forcing himself to speak in a calm, quiet voice.

"Put your gun on the ground, Goldman." Bailey ordered. He shifted his arms to dangle Jaime's limp body over the hole. One hand still held the gun to her head. "Do it now."

With no other choice, Oscar complied. Bailey flung Jaime roughly to the ground, right at the edge of the 'grave', and scowled at his two adversaries.

"Claudia's grave was empty," Oscar said flatly, "but you knew that all along, didn't you?"

"So that's how you found me," Bailey chuckled.

Oscar kept his voice low. "General, you've had an exemplary career. Is this really how you want it to end?"

"It ended over a year ago; Austin signed its death warrant." Bailey glanced down at Jaime. "He signed hers, too."

Steve felt utterly helpless. He thought about rushing Bailey, tackling him and pummeling the hell out of him, but that gun was inches from Jaime's head. The next thing he noticed made his heart sing with hope and break with despair: Jaime opened her eyes and then instantly closed them again. She was awake! Had Bailey noticed?

"It's just a shame she's not awake to enjoy her own grand finale," the General mused. He hadn't seen her! Steve fixed his gaze on Bailey, not even glancing at his wife, so as not to give her away.

"How long did you and Claudia plan this?" Steve asked, determined to hold his attention.

"When you ran instead of taking the blame for the files I helped Claudia sell, and then we heard that you'd gotten married...I guess you'd call it a spur of the moment decision. Why should you be happy when -"

Jaime, too weak to get up or to really fight, had correctly judged that the situation was dire, and did the only thing she had enough strength to pull off. With do-or-die determination, she swung her right leg out and hit Bailey in the ankles, sending him backwards into what was supposed to be her grave. Steve instantly leaped forward to grab the General's dropped weapon and pointed it into the hole.

"Don't even think about moving, _General_," he warned. With his other hand, he very gently caressed his wife's cheek and took her hand. "Jaime...Sweetheart, can you hear me?" She didn't answer.

Oscar finished giving orders via his Datacom and joined them next to the hole. "I'll keep an eye on Bailey," he told Steve. "You've got someone a lot more important to tend to. Medivac's on its way."

Steve nodded and turned his full attention to his wife. He took off his jacket, positioned it as a pillow and carefully turned her head so she wouldn't be lying on the bump. With one hand, he applied firm pressure to the bullet hole in her side. Judging from the amount of blood he could see (and what she must've lost before getting there) Steve knew it was a miracle she hadn't bled to death.

"It's over, Sweetheart," he whispered, lightly squeezing her hand. "You're safe now, and you're gonna be ok."

------


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The Medivac chopper was preparing to land in the road behind Bailey's car when Jaime re-opened her eyes. They were glassy, distant and filled with pain but also with determination: to fight and to **_live_**. Steve brushed the hair from her face, his fingertips lingering in an attempt to comfort her.

"Hi," he whispered softly. "Welcome back." She gazed up at him, and his love gave her strength. "You're safe now," he reaffirmed, and Jaime's eyes welled with the tears she hadn't allowed herself to shed during the two days she'd spent helplessly waiting to die.

The paramedics rushed toward them, led by a familiar but most unexpected face. "Rudy? Aren't you supposed to be in bed right now?" Steve asked, relieved to see him just the same.

"I'm fine," Rudy asserted. "No damage done. Besides, she's _my_ patient." He looked to the medics. "Let's get her on the chopper."

Once they were airborne, Steve sat off to one side as Rudy began tending to his patient. After applying a pressure bandage to the bullet wound, the doctor leaned in toward the stretcher. "Jaime, can you open your eyes for me, Honey?" Silently, with great effort, she did. "Good job. Now, try to focus on my finger.," the doctor requested, moving it slowly across her line of vision. She did seem to see it, but could only manage very brief moments of true focus.

"Steve..."

"I'm right here, Sweetheart," he said, moving in closer and taking her hand in both of his.

"Hurts..." she mumbled, before fading away again.

------

Steve waited in Rudy's office while Jaime was x-rayed, scanned and tested. Oscar arrived about an hour into the vigil. "How's she doing, Pal?" He asked.

"Rudy's still checking her over. Where's Bailey?"

"Having two broken ankles set."

"_Here_?"

"No - he's at County, under very heavy guard, and when he's done there, he'll go straight to solitary."

"He's lucky I didn't get my hands on him, or he'd have a lot more broken than just his ankles." Steve shook his head in bewilderment. "I can't imagine what happened to him. That wasn't the General Bailey I worked with."

"Whatever happened to him, it doesn't excuse what he did," Oscar seethed.

"When I picture him putting his hands on Jaime - _hurting_ her - it makes me sick to my stomach."

The office door opened and Rudy stood on the threshold, wishing he had better news. "Jaime's lost a massive amount of blood," he said grimly. "The bullet missed her internal organs, but it's lodged just millimeters from her spine. With all the jostling around, it's amazing she isn't paralyzed, or worse. X-rays also show a very small hairline fracture, just behind her left ear. Steve, we have a difficult choice to make. I'd like to operate and get that bullet before it has a chance to shift, but - to be honest - Jaime may not be strong enough to survive the surgery. Or, we could choose to wait, hopefully letting her get a bit stronger first. We'd have to immobilize her as much as possible, but there's still a high probability of the bullet shifting."

"You're saying Jaime could die either way?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, but whichever way we choose to go, her chance for survival is very slim. I know this puts an awful weight on your shoulders - to still be newlyweds and have to make this kind of decision - but it's imperative that we move quickly."

Steve closed his eyes for a moment, asking himself _What would Jaime want_? The answer was instantly crystal clear. "Jaime's never been one to take the passive approach on anything. She's always been a fighter, and in the last two days she fought the hardest battle of her life. Now we have to fight _for_ her. Go in and get the bullet, Rudy; I know that's what Jaime would want."

------

Steve forced himself to stop pacing, and when Oscar returned from a phone call, he found him at the window, staring at the floor instead of out at the scenery.

"Is it me, or have they been in surgery forever?"

"She's in good hands, Pal."

"I know. That's what's keeping me from jumping out of this window."

"You made the right decision," Oscar told him. "A month ago, I'd have been in your shoes, signing the consent forms, and I would've done exactly what you did. More importantly, it's what Jaime -"

Rudy was coming toward them, and this time, he was smiling.

"She...made it?" Steve asked tremulously.

"With flying colors. She's an incredibly strong woman, to come within hours - probably minutes - of death and rebound to this extent...I've never seen anything like it."

"Is she awake?"

"No. It'll take at least a few more hours for the anesthetic to wear off, but you can see her in a few minutes, once they get her settled down in ICU."

"Intensive Care?"

"Jaime's not entirely out of the woods yet. We've still got that fracture and the possibility of rejection to deal with. She'll need at least seven to ten days of strict bed rest, probably under sedation, for her skull to begin to heal. Then we'll see how well she's coming along and make decisions about the rest of her treatment."

"You're gonna keep her asleep for a week?"

"Not necessarily. She may only need light sedation, but we'll know more once Jaime wakes up. Be prepared, though, Steve, when she does regain consciousness , she's likely to be in considerable - probably severe - pain. One of our primary objectives will be to keep her as comfortable as possible. C'mon; I'll take you down to see her."

Before he went into Jaime's cubicle, Steve turned to Rudy. "You've saved _both_ of us today, Rudy," he said quietly. "_Thank you_ doesn't even begin to cover it."

Rudy smiled. "You two are the kids I never got to have," he said simply. "There no way I'd ever let anything happen to either one of you without putting up one hell of a fight."

Steve's eyes misted over as he hugged the heroic doctor, then he opened the glass cubicle door, pulled up a chair next to Jaime's bed and sat down to wait.

Her face was extremely pale, her eyes a bit sunken and her skin pasty from dehydration, but to Steve, Jaime had never looked more beautiful. He'd never completely given up hope, but it had begun to seem more and more likely that he'd never see her again, never hold her in his arms or caress her skin. His heart finally resumed beating normally as he gazed at the face of the only woman he'd ever loved.

It had grown dark outside and the sun was beginning to rise again when Jaime soundlessly opened her eyes.

"Hi there, Beautiful," he said very softly, leaning over to give her a gentle, careful kiss.

Jaime's eyes darted around the cubicle, trying to make sense of what seemed to be a sudden change of scenery. "It's...over?"

"It's over, Sweetheart," he told her. "You're safe now."

"Safe..." she whispered, shifting position slightly and wincing in pain.

As though on cue, Rudy joined them and, after a very quick check of Jaime's condition, he injected a painkiller directly into her IV line. "That should work pretty quickly, Honey, and you'll be a lot more comfortable."

Jaime gave the doctor a wan smile and turned to her husband. "Do you think...could you...hold me?"

"Of course," he told her, taking her hand.

"No - I mean _really_ hold me."

He'd been longing to do exactly that. Taking extreme care not to bump the bandage on her side or the back of her head, and watching out for the IV line, Steve tenderly enfolded Jaime in his arms. She sank into him easily and with a tiny sigh of contentment, she drifted off to sleep in the comfort of his warm, loving embrace.

------


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Two days later, Jaime was sitting up in bed, having lunch, and Steve was glued to her side - just as he'd been ever since she'd been admitted. He couldn't help noticing the new, haunted look in her eyes, but reasoned it would fade once she started talking about what had happened to her. Steve had asked her gently, and so had Rudy, but she'd merely told them she wasn't ready to talk about it yet. They all knew Jaime would have to give a statement to Jack Hansen, but Rudy had insisted, in no uncertain terms, that it had to wait until her condition was less precarious.

"Steve, I've got good news!" Oscar said, striding into the cubicle. "Hi, Jaime. You're looking a thousand percent better today."

"I feel better, too," she said, with a voice that was still weak, but managing a smile just the same. "What's the good news?"

Oscar was focused on telling Steve what had happened, not really ignoring Jaime, but figuring that since she wasn't talking about her ordeal, she'd probably tune them out. "Bailey gave up the location where he was holding Jaime," he told Steve. "We've got teams from the FBI and the NSB on their way over there right now. If he keeps talking, he just might agree to a plea bargain, and then Jaime wouldn't have to -"

"No," Steve said flatly.

"Bailey?" Jaime looked back and forth between the two men. "Who's Bailey?"

"No plea bargain, Oscar," Steve insisted. "He needs to pay for **_all_** of what he did, and I don't want him to have even the slightest hope of ever seeing daylight again."

"_Who is Bailey_?"

Steve moved over to sit on the edge of the bed. "Jaime, I don't wanna go into a lot of detail until you're stronger. The basic facts are hard enough to wrap your brain around."

"Ok..."

"Sweetheart, Claudia Spencer kidnapped you," he began.

"She's - alive?"

"She _was_."

"Oh." Jaime took a few moments to let that sink in. "Then who is this Bailey Whatever-His-Name-Is?"

"Franklin Bailey," Steve said, watching her very closely.

"The General? Oh - did he get me outta there?"

"No." Steve didn't know a gentle way to put it and he couldn't lie to her. "Jaime, Claudia took you from the house and turned you over to Bailey. She...paid him to kill you."

"_General Bailey_ is the one who hurt me?"

"Yes." Steve took her hand. "And he's gonna pay, for the rest of his life. I'll see to that." He turned to Oscar. "**No plea bargain**."

------

Over the course of the next week, Jaime began to feel more like herself again. On the tenth day following her rescue, Rudy came in to check on his patient and found her out of bed, in a chair by the window.

"It was time," she said simply.

Steve shrugged. "You know how she is, Rudy. I wasn't about to try and stop her."

"While I'm still getting my way, Steve, I need you to call Hansen for me, please. I wanna give my statement."

------

"...That's all I remember," Jaime told Jack Hansen later that evening. "They said I woke up in the woods, too, but that part's a blank."

"Jaime, thank you. You did a terrific job," Jack told her, meaning it. She'd drawn every possible detail out of her memory bank, saying she didn't want to carry it around any more.

"Jack, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"With a plea bargain, whose decision is it?"

"Well, the Prosecutor would come up with a deal, and, in your case, you'd have to approve it; then it would be offered to Bailey."

"The deal Oscar was talking about - how long would he be in prison?"

"A minimum of 25 years."

"So basically the rest of his life."

"You could say that. And 25 is only the minimum. His actual sentence would be up to the judge. Bailey would have to plead guilty to aggravated kidnapping and attempted murder, and the other charges would be dropped."

"Steve says that's letting him get away with too much, but he'd be in prison for good, either way, so why make it harder than it has to be? I wouldn't have to testify, right?"

"That's right."

"Tell the DA that I'll do it. Please?" Jaime requested.

"What about Steve?"

Jaime smiled, very slightly. "I can be extremely persuasive, and stubborn."

------

"Jaime," Steve protested, trying to pace off his frustration, "I already told them we didn't want the plea bargain. Why -?"

"He'll get at least 25 years, with no parole, and I won't have to drag it all out again in court."

"But Sweetheart, he hurt you so badly. He damn-near _killed_ you!" Steve's voice softened. "You were tortured -"

"I think I know that."

"He should have to answer to **_all_** of it, and suffer every single consequence he has coming to him."

"I want the plea bargain," Jaime said quietly.

"I'm your husband, and I already told them no."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but 'obey' was not in our vows. Steve, this is my decision to make, and I've made it." She looked up at him from the bed, suddenly very tired but needing resolution. Tears began to slowly pearl on her cheeks. "It was hard enough to dredge it all up for Jack. I know I haven't told you much yet, but -"

"_I already know_. I was meeting with the investigative team while you talked to Jack." They'd told him about the little metal box, and the fact that there was blood in it, meaning she'd been forced back in after being shot. "It breaks my heart...what he put you through. He needs to pay for that."

"He will. Some charges are being dropped - yes - but he's never getting out. I need this to be over, Steve; it's the only way I'll ever heal."

Steve nodded, brushed away her tears and took Jaime into his arms. "I understand, Sweetheart, and you're right."

"I usually am," she said lightly, already half-asleep.

------


	9. Epilogue

Epilogue 

"Forty years," Steve said, triumphantly hugging his wife. "He got forty years, no parole." It was exactly one week since Jaime had given her statement. Having influential friends had helped move the case along quickly.

Jaime was finally healed enough to wrap both of her arms around him, too, in a full and joyful embrace. "It's really over," she sighed happily.

"We need to talk about something, Jaime," Steve began cautiously.

"Sounds kinda serious."

"I guess it is. Rudy says you'll be ready to leave the hospital in a couple more days. Would you be more comfortable if we found a new place to live?" Steve had already replaced the bed and had the hole by their tree filled in, but he wasn't sure if returning to the house might be too traumatic for her.

"Is that what you want?"

"I just want you to be comfortable," he told her, "and happy."

"That's _our house_! I love it there, with the big old fireplace, that kitchen, and our own little patch of forest."

"The woods aren't gonna be too much?"

"I don't really remember that part anyway. I don't wanna move; that would mean he succeeded in hurting us, in taking away something we love. We can't let him win, after all."

Steve kissed her. "You are most definitely right."

"Like I told you before - I usually am."

------

"So, Young Lady," Rudy said as he finished Jaime's discharge notes, "I hear Oscar's given you both a month's vacation. Going somewhere exotic? Somewhere special?"

"Somewhere special...we're going **_home_**."

------

"I'll be ok, Steve. Would you please stop worrying?" Jaime said, smiling at him. "You're only going for groceries, not to the moon and back."

"You sure you don't wanna come with me?"

"I'll probably just take a nap," she told him, not at all intending to do that.

"You're sure you'll be ok alone?"

"_I'm fine_. Will you just go, please?"

Steve did. When he returned, Jaime came bouncing down the sidewalk to meet him as soon as he got out of the car. She threw her arms around him, nearly overcome with happiness.

"There's something I've gotta show you," she said excitedly. She took him by the hand and led him around the back of the house. Steve hesitated when he realized she was headed into the woods.

"_Come on_," she insisted. "You have to see what I did!"

Jaime led him to their tree, and Steve was amazed to see that the patch of bare dirt where the hole had been was now covered with flowers. "The tree!" she said, almost singing with joy. "Look at the tree!"

Steve looked at their names and their wedding date, carved (it seemed) so long ago. Right below that, Jaime had carved the date they'd returned from the hospital, and a very special message:

"**_WE WON!_**"

END


End file.
